Sunday, November 17, 2013

Simple Acts of Service

Nov 11 – We started by doing a fun job for a marine wife.Her husband is gone for extended training and
she is very pregnant with a very high risk pregnancy. She has wanted to hang a huge heavy mirror a friend had given her some time ago, but they have never been able to hang it.Last week when we visited her, we helped her hang her other pictures, but we didn't have any equipment to hang the mirror- I figured out what was needed and bought
an inexpensive stud finder and some big nails.So first thing we drove to Stafford to her home, about a half hour
away.It just so happened that her
husband was home for Veterans Day weekend.He and I did a lot of measuring, stud finding, adjusting, and finally
hammering.We were able to get two large
nails into the studs and hang the mirror in the dining room.
The sister was just delighted, as having the blanket-wrapped mirror out of the living room made her room a lot bigger and the apt really looks nice now. She is having family come for Thanksgiving, so she was excited to have things settled looking.It was a great start to the day – using my tools to make someone
happy!Then after some planning and
studying we headed out again.We
provided dinner (pizza, salad and pop) to a family with 4
children.The dad in this family is also
away at school, but he was home for the Veterans Day holiday too.So we brought them dinner and then did our
obedience FHE.It went well and was
great fun.The kids were younger than a
lot of the other families we have done the lesson for, but they like all the
dog pictures so it went well.Then we
went to visit a young couple that has been a bit less active.We were glad to get an appointment to go see
them.They are a very nice young couple,
both just 20, with a lovely Australian Shepherd that we really enjoyed.It was fun to get to know them and let them
get to know us a bit too. Her sister and new baby are moving in with them so they are moving out of base housing. We discussed this with them a bit.We played a
lot with their dog and had fun with him.Finally we gave them a short spiritual thought.It was a very nice evening and we felt
pleased with both visits. We felt blessed today to be involved in several simple but important activities.

Nov 12 – Today we had a mission
conference led by a Seventy.We were
visited by Elder and Sister Sitate from Kenya.They joined the church in Kenya in 1986.A fellow student at the university had attended college in the U.S. and
had joined the church there.He told
them about the church and after about ayear they joined.In 2009 Elder
Sitate was the first general authority called from Africa.He and Sister Sitate were very sweet, genuine
people.We enjoyed them immensely.Sister Sitate taught an excellent lesson
about getting along with your companion.She said if someone goes home from their mission and feels like they did
not learn what they should have or change the way they could have that it is
not their fault, it is the fault of their companion.She also said that learning to live and get
along with a companion 24/7 is good practice for the rest of your life.She had a calm and down-to-earth manner that
was enjoyable and persuasive.Then Elder
Sitate spoke about the Mission Purpose statement in great depth.He had many wonderful points and engaged the
Elders and Sisters successfully.He also
was very humble and down-to-earth.We
enjoyed hearing him.Lunch was provided
and we got to meet a new senior missionary couple that is just about 30 miles
south of us.We enjoyed chatting with
them.Their job is to work with a large
Young Single Adult branch, so we enjoyed telling them about our experience in
that area.We exchanged contact
information so that we could get together for dinner some time.We had previously been asked by President
Wilson to take Sister Sitate to the airport after the conference.She was returning home to Salt Lake while
Elder Sitate was flying somewhere else for church business.So they were leaving from different airports
in Washington DC.We drove her directly
to Reagan National Airport, which is about 45 minutes north of here.She was delightful to chat with in the car,
and expressed the same type of joys that we do in talking about her children
and grandchildren.Although they live in
Salt Lake, most of their children and all of their grandchildren live back in
Kenya. Lezlie had been working on her knitting in the car, and she said that it is
against the law to knit in a car in Kenya.Apparently someone had been killed by a knitting needle when they were
in a minor car wreck. So Lezlie put the knitting away. She was very kind
and friendly, and thanked us profusely for the ride to the airport.It was an assignment that we enjoyed very
much.It was a heavy traffic time when
we returned home, so instead of the freeway we drove down the George Washington
Parkway.It is a winding, tree lined
road that follows the Potomac River south from Washington DC all the way to
George Washington’s rural home, Mt Vernon.It was very pretty and a most enjoyable drive.Although it took a bit longer we did not have
to fight with traffic until we got close to home.So another different type of day sitting at
the foot of a Seventy and being taught with a hundred or so young Sisters and
Elders.And then getting to chat with an
amazing woman from Africa to top it all off.It was another wonderful adventure.

Nov 13 – The bulk of our day was
takenup by our training at the Navy
Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS).They do very detailed training before they let us work on financial issues
with any clients.Even after we finish
the training we have to shadow other trained workers before they turn us loose
with clients.This is an important
service for these marines.They do not
get paid a lot, and when emergencies come up sometimes they just cannot pay for
them.Also, some of the really young
marines that are out on their own and finally earning a paycheck just overspend
on cars, tvs and stereos.We learned a
lot about how the system works and how to work with the clients in a positive
but mentoring way.The training was long
but good.We actually have some homework
tonight, but that is a good sign.It
means they take the training seriously.After a visit to the doctor (still trying to deal with my itching) we
took 4 young Elders out to a Chinese buffet.One of them is Canadian Korean and had been bemoaning the lack of good
Asian food.It also turned out to be the
19th birthday of one of the Elders so it was nice we took them
out.We had some wonderful Asian food
including some delicious Mandu.But we
ate too much.Ugh.

Nov 14 – Today was day two of our
NMCRS training.It was even better
today.We did a run through of a full
budget, just like we will do for marine clients.It is a fairly complicated process, but we
started getting the hang of it after a while.We also have gotten to know several of the other volunteers and they are
really nice folks.It is interesting to
hear their stories of being involved with the military all over the world and
why they volunteer at NMCRS.We finished
our training successfully and now just have to shadow others for a while before
we are fully qualified.Next we did a
Christmas shopping trip at the Marine Corps Museum.They have every imaginable Marine souvenir
you could imagine.It was fun to try to
find things for the grandkids there.Then we made two important visits to inactive marine families that we have been
trying to get to know better. One young sister has an inactive husband and so struggles to get to church and activities by
herself.They have 3 children,4, 2 and 4 months.The 2 year old was born with a malformed eye
and has no real eyeball on one side.She
has had multiple procedures and she is having eye surgery in a couple of weeks
to put a ball inside.This is not really
a fake eye, it is just a plastic sphere that will help keep her face from
deforming while it is growing so fast for the next couple of years.When she is about 4 they will put in a real
fake eye that they can increase in size as she grows.Anyway, she has a lot to go through at such a
young age, and her mom is dealing with a lot of it alone.She is a nice gal, but she is tired and
somewhat stressed.I got to hold the
baby for a while, and we got to visit with her and get to know her better.We think that she will call on us if there is
anything we can do to help.The second
family, had a very premature baby that had all kinds of
complications.He was in the hospital
for about 6 months.He has had multiple
medical procedures as well,and the mom
had to deal with a lot of it alone while her marine husband was away.Now things are better. They have nurses that
come in and monitor the baby at night.Apparently with real premature babies they can just stop breathing in
the middle of the night.The baby is
about 10 months old but looks like he is about 2 months old.So we got to know her better and offered to
do what we could to help.We hope she
feels welcome to call us.We were very
glad to get to visit both of these families.It was humbling to see these young moms dealing with these significant
health issues.We feel so blessed to
have healthy family members.

Nov 15 – Today we got some more
training related to our service at the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society.We were actually shadowing the Client Service
Assistant.This is the person who first
sees marines and families that come in for service.The CSA greets them and gets all the
paperwork started.The CSA is also
approved to grant quick loans of up to $500.The NMCRS developed these loans to try to overcome the payday lenders
outside of base that charge exorbitant rates.So we got to watch the CSA give a $500 check to a marine that was in
dire straits, and he was happy and appreciative.The CSA also answers all incoming calls.So next week mom and I will have our first
stint as the actual CSA, but we are going to do it together so there is less
chance of goofing something up.After
out training we stopped by to see a family that just had
their first baby about two weeks ago.She is a member and he is not.But he has taken lessons from the missionaries and said he might be
interested in getting baptized.They are
a great young family, and we really hit it off with them.They are from Washington (she has a UW Husky
flag on the front porch) and they love dogs too.They have a lovable bull dog .Anyway, we were having a nice
visit with them and I casually asked if they were planning on having the baby
blessed.The mom said“Well, we were just
wondering if you could do the baby blessing.”Before they had been talking like they were going to have her dad do the
blessing when she goes home for a visit with the new baby in early December.But the husband cannot go, due to work, so he would
miss the blessing. So they did not want the dad to miss it, so they want to do it here in Virginia.And she asked me.I said yes, of course.I am totally honored and will be happy to do
the blessing for them.We then got some needed shopping done including a bit more Christmas
shopping.We decided we needed to get
ready for shipping several packages, so we began doing some wrapping and
packing.Other than this it was a calm
day.

Nov 16 – We decided we needed to have a real P-day ( preparation day) today. We both had several lessons to prepare,
some housework, chores, planning and resting today.So we got our talks and lessons ready for
tomorrow, did some family history, reviewed and studied some materials,
practiced knitting, and got a good rest.We need some down days like this occasionally because we really do get
tired on those days that we drive 100 miles and visit 5 or 6 families in one
day.

Nov 17 – We had a great meeting with
our OCS group early this morning.It was
so delightful to see our great OCS friends after two weeks.We missed them last week because they had a
field exercise and they had church in the field.They are so happy to be nearing graduation in
just 10 days. So far all of our LDS OCS candidates have made it. In addition, we were pleased to hear
that our Stephen Davis won the Gung Ho Award.This is an award that is voted on by the others candidates for the most
inspirational and positive candidate on the company.It is pretty cool since it is voted on by
peers.He was pretty proud of
himself.This is the one that told us he
might not make it back at week 2.Today
they were all talkative, sharing stories and experiences and providing
excellent discussion during the lesson.We had a lesson on courage that went over very well.They had liberty and 3 of them hung around
for a while just chatting.When I asked
if Sister Couch and I could be a temporary part of their family and attend the
family day activities that take place the day before graduation, they all said
yes. We were happy to hear that our less active candidate was accepted into the same school where his platoon mate will be attending graduate school. He said they would keep in touch. They ate a phenomenal amount food as usual. Lezlie made some candied walnuts for them at their request and they were pleased that she remembered.After resting at home for a bit we went to our regular church
meetings.We had some nice talks and
music that were inspiring.Lezlie was
the substitute for the Gospel Essentials class today.The lesson was about what happens to your
spirit when you die.At the start of the
lesson there was an African lady that came into class.We met her but did not get to ask much about
her before class started.Lezlie taught
an excellent, thought provoking class lessons about what happens to our spirits
when we die.At the end of the lesson
this little African lady said she wanted to make a comment.She said that a year ago today she had lost a
loved one and had grieved for a long time.She said that this morning, the morning of the one year anniversary of
her loss, she decided she needed to go to church somewhere and find out some
answers.She came to the LDS church all
on her own even though she had never been before.And she said she had good feelings about the
lesson and what she had learned.She
said she had felt the spirit of God.Mom
gave her a big hug after the lesson.It
was quite touching.The sister
missionaries talked with her and set up an appointment to go visit her.It was a remarkable experience. We have had several remarkable experiences this week. We are learning that when we let loose and allow the Spirit to guide us we are guided so some pretty remarkable experiences.